The present disclosure relates generally to integrated circuits, and more specifically, to protecting electronic components and data stored in integrated circuits.
Protecting integrated circuit technology and data is a substantial concern in the commercial and industrial sectors. Integrated circuits and related devices are routinely acquired by motivated commercial and/or governmental competitors that seek to reverse engineer or to otherwise learn the functionality of the technology. The acquired information can be used by the competitors to provide a technological leap in their own devices, and/or to exploit a perceived weakness in the examined equipment. Thus, sophisticated governmental and commercial entities possess ample strategic and/or economic motivations to reverse engineer integrated circuit components.
Reverse engineering of an integrated circuit may be performed while the integrated circuit is in a powered-on state in order to observe its functionality. Designers of the integrated circuit may thus implement safeguard measures within the integrated circuit to take advantage of the powered-on state, such as a self-destruct or obstructing mechanism that is triggered by the detection of tampering. However, such safeguard measures may not distinguish between sensitive components and non-sensitive components of the integrated circuit, such that a detected tampering event may disable or otherwise affect operation of the non-sensitive components.